Addis Ababa (dpa) - Ethiopia is to receive German grants totalling 32 million birr (3.73 million dollars) for the conservation and use of coffee Arabica, the country's main foreign exchange earner, and for new emergency support packages in drought-affected areas of the country, officials said.
The coffee Arabica project, to which Berlin is providing a grant of 15 million birr, was jointly launched Monday by the German-based Centre for Development Research (ZEF) of Bonn University and the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Organization (EARO).
The three-year scientific and technical cooperation with Bonn University was being financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with an outlay of 1.6 million euros focussing on coffee Arabica wild growing areas of rain forests in the south and southwestern Ethiopia.
Yonnas Yemishaw, forestry research director with EARO, said at the signing ceremonies at the German embassy in Addis Ababa that additional funds for post-graduate students, scientist exchange, transportation and technical equipment, which the German government was providing, were also covered in the agreement.
The scope of the activities of the Ethiopian coffee Arabica conservation and use project include exchange of researchers, post-graduate students as well as scientific and technical information. birr), according to a German embassy statement.
The other grant of 17 million birr announced Monday, was the first German emergency relief aid to Ethiopia for 2003 made in response to the appeal the country had made at the beginning of the year.
Five million birr was extended through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for the distribution of water, food and seeds to farmers affected in Tigray Regional State in the northern Ethiopia and in Oromiya Regional States covering parts of the western, eastern and south-eastern Ethiopia.
The remaining 12 million birr of the grant is to be disbursed through the aid programme "Menschen fuer Menschen'' (people for people) for the provision of food and seeds to severely affected areas of Eastern Hararghe of Oromiya Region in Eastern Ethiopia and the adjoining Somali Regional State.
dpa gh ds AP-NY-02-11-03 0417EST
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